02491cam a22003257 4500001000700000003000500007005001700012008004100029100002900070245017200099260006600271490004200337500001800379520085000397530006101247538007201308538003601380690008801416690009801504690012901602690005901731690008401790690005501874700001801929700002401947710004201971830007702013856003802090856003702128w12554NBER20150802160742.0150802s2006 mau||||fs|||| 000 0 eng d1 aDe Nardi, Mariacristina.10aDifferential Mortality, Uncertain Medical Expenses, and the Saving of Elderly Singlesh[electronic resource] /cMariacristina De Nardi, Eric French, John Bailey Jones. aCambridge, Mass.bNational Bureau of Economic Researchc2006.1 aNBER working paper seriesvno. w12554 aOctober 2006.3 aPeople have heterogenous life expectancies: women live longer than men, rich people live longer than poor people, and healthy people live longer than sick people. People are also subject to heterogenous out-of-pocket medical expense risk. We construct a rich structural model of saving behavior for retired single households that accounts for this heterogeneity, and we estimate the model using AHEAD data and the method of simulated moments. We find that the risk of living long and facing high medical expenses goes a long way toward explaining the elderly's savings decisions. Specifically, medical expenses that rise quickly with both age and permanent income can explain why the elderly singles, and especially the richest ones, run down their assets so slowly. We also find that social insurance has a big impact on the elderly's savings. aHardcopy version available to institutional subscribers. aSystem requirements: Adobe [Acrobat] Reader required for PDF files. aMode of access: World Wide Web. 7aD1 - Household Behavior and Family Economics2Journal of Economic Literature class. 7aD31 - Personal Income, Wealth, and Their Distributions2Journal of Economic Literature class. 7aE2 - Consumption, Saving, Production, Investment, Labor Markets, and Informal Economy2Journal of Economic Literature class. 7aH31 - Household2Journal of Economic Literature class. 7aH51 - Government Expenditures and Health2Journal of Economic Literature class. 7aI1 - Health2Journal of Economic Literature class.1 aFrench, Eric.1 aJones, John Bailey.2 aNational Bureau of Economic Research. 0aWorking Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research)vno. w12554.4 uhttp://www.nber.org/papers/w1255441uhttp://dx.doi.org/10.3386/w12554